Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems

The Fraunhofer IPMS operates a 15,000 square foot clean room for all customer technology development requirements, as well as pilot fabrication. Our MEMS and CMOS facility is rated at Class 4 according to ISO 14644-1 and Class 10 according to U.S. Standard 209E. We at Fraunhofer IPMS are open for a wide variety of cooperation models from complete research and development over direct customer use of our infrastructure and facilities, to foundry services for individual process steps, entire process modules, or complete pilot production projects. The clean room was planned and constructed according to the latest industry standards. With the extension of our process technology to the 200 mm wafer standard in the fourth quarter of 2015, we are able to create the conditions necessary to remain an attractive R & D service provider for More-than-Moore technologies.

The business unit CNT has its own infrastructure for process and material development on 300 mm wafers at its site at Königsbrücker Straße. The working environment complies with industrial standards and permits customers a contamination-free input and output of wafers. Developments and new processes can be integrated into customer processing sequences (down to 2X nm) rapidly and without risk in order to save production costs and time. CNT’s range of services extends from technology development and electrical characterization to reliability testing, evaluation of equipment right through to comprehensive nanoanalytics. More than 40 experienced scientists work on new materials, processes and nanoelectronics components to find optimal solutions for customers. Local proximity to production lines and close cooperation with industrial partners make CNT an ideal cooperation partner. More than 40  processing and analysis tools are available for processing customer orders on 800 m² of clean room space (ISO 14644-1 class 6) and 200 m² of laboratory space. The equipment includes deposition and etching systems as well as inspection and analysis tools to determine defects and measure layer properties.

Fraunhofer IPMS offers its customers comprehensive services for the development of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and micro-opto-electromechanical systems (MOEMS) on 150 mm / 200 mm wafers. These services range from technology feasibility studies to process development all the way to complete fabrication processes including in-line process monitoring, post-process electrical characterization, and full process and device qualification. If desired, we will drive a process and device development through to pilot production in our own facility, or transfer the technology to another facility designated by the customer. Besides the development and production of complete MEMS technologies, we provide foundry services for individual process steps as well as technology modules. We are able to offer these comprehensive services because of our deep technological expertise in the fields of surface and bulk micromachining. In addition, we have considerable experience combining these MEMS technologies with more conventional CMOS device and process technology. Our knowhow in integrating MEMS and CMOS is used for the development of monolithic systems, where sensors and / or actuators are manufactured, together with the control electronics, in a single fabrication process. All single processes, technology modules, and complete process technologies are developed by our highly experienced team of 34 engineers, physicists, and chemists. Likewise, our team also provides support for the clean room and clean room equipment, and pilot production technologies (including process and yield optimization activities).